Theft costs shopkeepers £2.13bn
Shoplifting and violence against shop workers reached new heights last year as store chiefs picked up a £2.13bn bill for retail crime.
According to the British Retail Consortium’s annual crime survey, customer theft alone cost the retail sector £589m, a staggering 44 per cent increase from 2003. The value of losses blamed on staff also nearly doubled from £282m to £498m.
BRC director general Kevin Hawkins said the decision to issue shoplifters with £80 fines had put the crime on a “level with a parking offence. This has sent out a signal to criminals that retail crime is not taken seriously”.
Despite the fact that retailers spent £710m on crime prevention in their stores last year, the number of thefts per 100 outlets increased by 18 per cent to 3,385. Since 2000 the number of incidents has increased by nearly 50 per cent. Offenders who steal goods worth up to £200 are given a fixed penalty notice of £80.
The BRC said that incidents of verbal abuse also increased by more than a third in 2004 with acts of physical violence up 14 per cent, a continuing trend since 2000. Threatening behaviour is more prolific around the sale of cigarettes and lottery and child travel tickets where shoppers are required to prove their age.
Hawkins said that the increase in violent crime was “no doubt linked to the growing incidence of yobbish behaviour” as well as drug abuse.
Crime and crime prevention measures cost retailers a total of £2.13bn in 2004, up 9 per cent from 2003. Losses from crime by value in 2004 were virtually the same as in 2000 but significantly higher than in 2003, although the number of burglaries, till snatches and robberies had fallen. In London the west central area, including Holborn, Strand and Neal’s Yard, is a hot spot for shoplifting and plastic card fraud. Over the last five years retailer have spent £3.5bn on crime prevention.
